Hello everyone,
I would like to apply to Harvard early action and Temple University rolling admissions. Is that okay? I don’t want to violate either school’s policies.
Yes
You are fine Temple is a state school.
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/apply/first-year-applicants says that “If you apply to Harvard under our Early Action program, you may also apply at the same time to any public college/university or to foreign universities but you are restricted from applying to other private universities’ Early Action and Early Decision programs.” (emphasis added)
Temple is a public school, so it is not under the restriction.
Also, for what it’s worth, “rolling admissions” is not an “Early Action [or] Early Decision program.” Rolling admissions is just regular decision, with nonbinding acceptances, but they release their decisions piecemeal. The difference between rolling admissions and Early Action: With Early Action the college promises some sort of decision (which can include deferral to RD) by a specific date, usually around the middle of December. With rolling admissions the decisions come out in batches from time to time, some before December 15 and some after, but no applicant is guaranteed to get an answer before the end of March.
Based on the Harvard language, a student could apply SCEA to Harvard and also simultaneously RD to a private institution that had rolling admissions, just as a student can apply SCEA to Harvard and simultaneously RD to any other college that generally did not notify RD applicants of its decision until February or March.
Rolling admissions is mostly very popular with public universities. There aren’t lots of private colleges that do that, and most of them don’t really compete with Harvard. Some rolling admissions colleges are notorious for frontloading their admissions and merit grants, so it’s important to apply early.